Early History Of Botany
IN the present book, the special subject treated is the evolution of the printed herbal, between the years 1470 and 1670, but it is impossible to arrive at clear ideas on this subject without some knowledge of the earlier stages in the history of Botany.

Aristotelian Botany
Aristotle, Plato's pupil, concerned himself with the whole field of science, and his influence, especially during the Middle Ages, had a most profound effect on European thought. The greater part of his botanical writings, which belong to the fourth century before Christ, are unfortunately lost, but, from such fragments as remain, it is clear that his interest in plants was of an abstract nature.

Medicinal Botany
With the Revival of Learning, the speculative botany of the ancients began to lose its hold upon thinking men. This may be attributed to the curious lack of vitality, and the absence of the power of active development, manifested in this aspect of the subject since its initiation at the hands of Aristotle.

Earliest Printed Herbals (fifteenth Century)
AFTER the invention of printing, a very active period of book production followed, during which many works, which had previously passed a more or less lengthy existence in manuscript, were put into circulation in print, contemporaneously with books actually written at the time.

Herbarium Of Apuleius Platonicus
Another very early book based on classical writings, especially those of Dioscorides and Pliny, was the ` Herbarium' of Apuleius Platonicus. This little Latin work is among the earliest to which the term Herbal is generally applied. A herbal has been defined as a book containing the names and descriptions of herbs, or of plants in general, with their properties and virtues.

Latin Herbarius
The work to which we may refer for convenience as the Latin Herbarius is also known under many other titles—Herbarius in Latino,' Aggregator de Simplicibus, Herbarius Moguntinus,' `Herbarius Patavinus,' etc. It was originally printed at Mainz by Peter Schoffer in 1484, in the form of a small quarto.

German Herbarius And Related Works
Of even greater importance than the Latin Herbarius is the German Herbarius or 'Herbarius zu Teutsch,' some-times also called the German Ortus Sanitatis, or the Smaller Ortus.

Hortus Sanitatis
The third of the fundamental botanical works, produced at Mainz towards the close of the fifteenth century, was the Hortus,' or as it is more commonly called ` Ortus Sanitatis,' printed by Jacob Meydenbach in 1491.

Early History Of The Herbal In England
CONCERNING the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, a few remarks have been already made. This herbal was perhaps the first through which any kind of systematic knowledge of medicinal plants was brought into Britain.

Banckes' Herbal
The first book printed in England, which can really be called a herbal, is an anonymous quarto volume, with-out illustrations, published in 1525. The title-page runs, - Here begynneth a newe mater, the whiche sheweth and treateth of ye vertues and proprytes of herbes, the whiche is called an Herball.

Grete Herball
Among the earlier English herbals, the greater reputation belongs, not to Banckes' Herbal in any of its forms, but to the ` Grete Herball ' printed by Peter Treveris in 1526, and again in 1529.

Herbal In Germany.
IN his History of Botany, Kurt Sprengel first used the honoured title, The German Fathers of Botany, to describe a group of herbalists—Brunfels, Bock, Fuchs and Cordus—whose work belongs principally to the first half of the sixteenth century.

Herbal In The Low Countries
In the sixteenth century, the Herbal flourished exceedingly in the Low Countries. This was due in part to the zeal and activity of the botanists of the Netherlands, but perhaps even more to the munificence, and love of learning for its own sake, which distinguished that prince of publishers, Christophe Plantin of Antwerp.

Herbal In Italy
The Italian botanists of the Renaissance devoted them-selves chiefly to interpreting the works of the classical writers on Natural History, and to the identification of the plants to which they referred. This came about quite naturally, from the fact that the Mediterranean flora, which they saw around them, was actually that with which the writers in question had been, in their day, familiar.

Herbal In Switzerland
Among the many scientific men, whose names are associated with Switzerland, one of the most renowned is Konrad Gesner (Plate X), who was born at Zurich in 1516, the son of a poor furrier. His taste for botany was due, in the first instance, to the influence of his uncle, a protestant preacher.

Herbal In France
France (excluding the French Netherlands) does not seem, at first sight, to have contributed a great deal towards the development of the Herbal in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it must be remembered that jean and Gaspard Bauhin, and the publisher, Christophe Plantin, were French by extraction, though Switzerland and Holland were their countries by adoption.

Herbal In England
The greatest name among British herbalists of the Renaissance period is that of William Turner, physician and divine, the Father of British Botany. He was a north-countryman, a native of Morpeth in Northumberland, where he was born probably between 1510 and 1515.

Revival Of Aristotelian Botany
The subject of Aristotelian botany scarcely comes within the scope of a book on Herbals, but, at the same time, it cannot be sharply separated from the botany of the herbalists.

Evolution Of The Art Of Plant Description
PROBABLY one of the chief objects, which the early herbalists had in view in writing their books, was to enable the reader to identify various medicinal plants. Nevertheless, until well into the sixteenth century, their drawings were so conventional, and their descriptions left so much to be desired...

Evolution Of Plant Classification
IN the earliest European works on natural history—those of the Aristotelian school—we meet with an attempt to classify the different varieties of plants. It was inevitable that the writers of this school should make such an attempt, since no mind trained in Greek philosophy could be content to leave a science in the condition of a mere chaos of isolated descriptions.

Evolution Of The Art Of Botanical Illustration
IN the art of botanical illustration, evolution was by no means a simple and straightforward process. We do not find, in Europe, a steady advance from early illustrations of poor quality to later ones of a finer character.

Doctrine Of Signatures And Astrological Botany
DURING the preceding chapters, we have restricted our discussion to those writings which may be credited with having taken some part, however slight, in advancing the knowledge of plants. We have, as it were, confined our attention to the main stream of botanical progress, and its tributaries.

Conclusions Herbals
GENERAL review of the subjects discussed in the foregoing chapters brings home to us several results of some interest. Perhaps the most obvious of these is the incalculable debt which Botany owes to Medicine. An overwhelming majority of the herbalists were physicians, who were led to the study of botany on account of its connection with the arts of healing.

Healthy Living
Five hundred years ago, in England and France and the other principal countries of Europe, the leaders of the people were a special class of men called knights. A knight had to be a soldier, absolutely free from fear. He must always be true to his king and his country and his friends.

Your Wonderful Body
What are the things that interest you most as you walk home from school or wander about in the woods? Smooth shiny stones are attractive, particularly if they have bright colored specks in them. If you are like most children, however, you find flowers more beautiful than stones—and there are a great many more kinds of flowers than there are of stones.

Framework Of The Body
If you have ever been at the, seashore, you have probably seen jelly-fishes swimming in the water, like clear glassy bells; and you have perhaps noticed some of these same jellyfishes washed up on the sand and looking then like mere lumps of lifeless jelly.

How The Parts Of Our Body Move
You have learned in Chapter II that the organs which move the different parts of the body are called muscles. You have learned, too, that a muscle is joined to two bones or other hard parts of the body, and that when the muscle shortens, it brings nearer together the two parts to which it is fastened.

Telephone System Of The Body
How Messages Travel in the Body. Reach out your finger and touch something on your desk or on the table near you; then think a little about what must have been going on in your body to make that simple movement possible.

How We Learn About The World Outside
In war, men are sent up in airplanes as observers, to find out what is going on behind the lines of the enemy. These airplanes have been called the eyes of the army and the navy. They are compared to our eyes, because it is largely by means of the eyes that we find out what is happening in the world about us.

Fuel For The Body
We have learned in Chapter II that the body needs food to keep it going, just as an automobile needs gasoline or a locomotive needs fuel. The energy of the body, the strength which moves the arms and legs, keeps the heart beating and the other organs working—this energy all comes from the food.